The Dangle Theory

For the last couple of weeks, I've been experiencing little pangs of sadness from time to time. Nothing serious - just momentary pauses where I am overcome by a sense of loss, of reflection. It's an excruciatingly busy time right now, so for the most part these pangs come and go with out a whole lot of dissection. It is true that when you have a family you have very little time for self-examination (though its probably also true that we could all benefit from a little more reflection. But I digress).

So these pangs, I think, come from a couple of different sources. The first is that right about this time I would have been giving birth to baby #3. It wasn't meant to be, and I'm pretty ok with that, but several friends have given birth recently or are about to and I can't help but recall that - had things gone differently - I would be as well.

The second pangs come from the ever-unforgiving passage of time. I try not to revel in nostalgia - let's face it, there is little you can do about time moving forward. And I'm a forward thinking person, not a reflector on the past. But nothing throws time in your face quite like watching your children grow up at breakneck speed in front of your eyes. Another school year is coming to a close, and I have no more kids in kindergarten! When did this happen? And both my kids had off-the-charts growth spurts this year. They are hardly recognizable from where they were just 12 months ago.

So the other day I took the kids out for a while so B could sleep off a cold. The recent spate of wet weather meant sports were canceled (again) so we found ourselves running random places to window shop and explore. At one point I had to take K2 to the bathroom, and as she sat there I saw her little feet dangling. And I realized that most everywhere my kids sit their feet still dangle. They want to be big - they say big things and we have big conversations and - more often than not - they stump me with wise thoughts and penetrating questions. But try as they might, their bodies just don't yet fill up any seat. And as long as they're still dangling I've got time. Time to baby them, time to grab them up in my lap for a snuggle, time to teach them while they still think I know everything. I can still grasp their ever-growing hands in mind and lead them across a busy street, or home through the park and (most times) they don't pull away.

One day their bodies will catch up to their too-grown-up-for-their-own-good-brains and they will fill in those seats and they'll be trying to maneuver gangly legs and arms in small places. But for now, they dangle.

And I take a deep breath, and the pangs subside.